In Filipino households, the humble mosquito net – locally known as kulambo – is more than a utilitarian object; it signifies shelter, comfort, and at times, authority. For Ged Unson Merino, it becomes a material lens through which he examines migration, community, and the constantly shifting sense of belonging. He transforms it into an intimate yet expansive installation.
Titled “The Journey is Home,” the installation is part of this year’s Art Fair PH/Projects. It is composed of clusters of kulambo suspended and draped across the gallery. These forms create porous enclosures that invite people to enter and feel both protected and open. The work feels both personal and shared, encouraging viewers to think about safety, closeness, and belonging.
Echoing diasporic experience
Ged often uses shapes that look like islands in his work. He explains his reason for doing so in an exclusive interview with adobo Magazine, saying, “Referencing the Philippines as an archipelago, these forms introduce a spatial logic rooted in separation and relation that echoes the diasporic experience that underpins my practice. Positioned within and around the larger structures of the presentation, the islands suggest home as something dispersed yet held together through relation.” His work also aligns with broader discussions among Filipino artists living overseas, many of whom understand home as something continuously made rather than geographically inherited.
Through layered materials and collective engagement, Ged examines how migration forms symbols, identity, and emotional anchors.
Returning to Manila for Art Fair Philippines feels especially meaningful for him. “The Journey Is Home” started in Bogotá and traveled through different cities. It has arrived “home,” in the Philippines. Ged described the experience as “surreal, magical and an unbelievable opportunity to bring back work conceived elsewhere and see it form anew.”
Ged hopes that his work helps people understand what it’s like to be a Filipino living away from home. His approach highlights how home is always changing, shaped by ongoing choices and actions.
“Almost all diasporas involve the idea of return. Sometimes the return is literal. Sometimes physical. I’m an immigrant who explores physical and emotional boundaries… trying to accept that home is not something static.”
Migration as material and metaphor
Ged’s practice is shaped by the places he walked to. Raised in Manila, he relocated to New York on what was meant to be a one-year scholarship, and stayed for 27 years. Now, he splits his time between New York, Manila, and Bogotá, Colombia, where his wife is from. Each city, he says, has changed how he thinks about belonging.
“I feel truly fortunate to be in that situation. Each city has its own pros and cons. Their own energy, vibe and lifestyle which all seep into my ‘being’ and practice. Acceptance/unacceptance, forces me to learn to navigate the proverbial seas.” he said.
“Living in each city brought different challenges. In New York, I felt right at home, easily made friends in art school, and grew a community when I opened Bliss on Bliss Art Projects, an alternative art space in my studio. Many genuine friendships were formed there. In Bogotá, I felt hostility at first. It was challenging, but over time, while doing my projects, I met many crafters and built a community. Manila is my first home. I felt a little resistance when I returned after 25 years, but that changed quickly,” Ged added.
Through these journeys, Ged arrived at a vital insight that home is less a fixed location than a practice, something performed through care, participation, and creativity.
During a residency in Bogotá amid the pandemic, Ged initially felt isolated and creatively blocked. A walk with his Basset Hound shifted his perspective. He began to see the city’s lushness, its vibrancy, and the possibility of engaging with it.
“One day, I was walking my Basset Hound, Barnaby. He was sniffing around, and when I looked up, the veil lifted. I saw the lushness and beauty of the city. That was when I understood that home is more than a fixed physical location,” Ged narrated.
After that moment, Ged changed his studio work into installations that encourage working together and building connections. He believes that belonging is not tied to permanence or arrival. For him, it is produced through movement, repetition, and care, through the act of making with others, across time and place.
“What is gathered here is not an endpoint, but a living structure shaped by the journeys that continue beyond it.”
The kulambo as a living archive
Ged’s frequent use of kulambo shows both his fascination and his process of learning. What started as a personal comfort in Bogotá became a way to practice making a sense of home. Each installation collects pieces of the artist, the city, and the people involved.
“When I showed [up] at Maleza Proyectos in Bogotá, I divided the room into two parts. One half was filled with furniture and objects piled and strung together; the other half had a mosquito net and a wall piece of nature. For me, the first room reflected my state of being at the beginning. The other half was where I found peace with myself — it also reflected finding home. From then on, in different iterations, this idea has become central to my work,” he said.
Through the kulambo (Mosquito nets), Ged negotiates layered Filipino meanings of protection, intimacy, and care. It functions as both a domestic object and a public interface, mediating relationships and inviting engagement.
“[Kulambo] creates an intimate space within a public context, holding together the presentation’s many elements while remaining permeable. As I traveled, the kulambo traveled with me, accumulating gestures and traces of participation. It is shaped not only by my hand, but by the presence of others.”
Essentially, across the cities he went through, his installations accumulated histories, reflecting the diasporic experience of fluid identity and dispersed home among his art viewers.
“Participation completes the work. Viewers are invited to enter, to engage, and to contribute. They become part of the work’s ongoing formation. Meaning is not delivered fully formed, but generated through encounter and conversation. In this way, authorship remains shared, and the work resists closure.”
Home as a living practice
Showing “The Journey Is Home” in Manila is an important moment for Ged. Since he first started the project in Bogotá in 2021, it has traveled to many cities and countries, changing with each new place and experience.
“For this particular trip back, the emotion and excitement are indescribable,” Ged said. Bringing it to the Philippines brings all these experiences together, making the exhibition feel like a personal and ongoing return, similar to the journeys of people living away from home.
The work shown at Art Fair Philippines is not finished, but keeps changing as it moves to new places and as more people take part in it. The exhibition stays open to new meanings, shaped by people’s involvement, memories, and reactions.
Likewise, Ged sees his work as part of a larger group of Filipino artists, filmmakers, and writers who work in different countries. Many of them also think of home as something you keep creating, not just a place. Still, he says, people rarely talk about this directly.
“Most of the time, there is no real conversation about it,” he said. “It is more through their works where their narratives of home [appear] in an inconspicuous way, which for me speaks about process rather than place.”
“The Journey Is Home” does not offer answers so much as a framework, especially for diasporic Filipinos who no longer feel anchored to a single geography. Home, in Ged’s work, is not inherited or claimed, but it is made and remade through movement, care, and shared presence.
He is not finishing a journey. Instead, he is opening it up, letting the work take on new meanings, challenges, and ways of belonging.
adobo Magazine is an official media partner of Art Fair Philippines 2026.
Read more:
Art as devotion: Imelda Cajipe Endaya’s creative practice as lifelong advocacy
Crafting a life in clay: Jon and Tessy Pettyjohn on building a creative legacy together
Math as a universal language: Isaiah Cacnio bridges Math and Art with his digital masterpieces
